Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010

What's So Great About Organic Food?

By Jeffrey Kluger

Update Appended: Aug. 25, 2010

Looking for a quick way to feel lousy about yourself? Then forget the idea of a healthy diet and just eat what your body wants you to eat. Your body wants meat; your body wants fat; your body wants salt and sugar. Your body will put up with fruits and vegetables if it must, but only after all the meat, fat, salt and sugar are gone. And as for the question of where your food comes from — whether it's locally grown, sustainably raised, grass-fed, free range or pesticide-free? Your body doesn't give a hoot.

But you and your body aren't the only ones with a stake in this game. Your doctor has opinions about what you should eat. So does your family. And so too do the food purists who lately seem to be everywhere, insisting that everything that crosses your lips be raised and harvested and brought to market in just the right way. If you find this tiresome — even intrusive — you're not alone. "It's food, man. It's identity," says James McWilliams, a professor of environmental history at Texas State University. "We encourage people to eat sensibly and virtuously, and then we set this incredibly high bar for how they do it." (See whether you should buy organic or conventional food.)

The ideal — as we're reminded and reminded and reminded — is to go organic, to trade processed foods for fresh foods and the supermarket for the farmers' market. Organic foods of all kinds currently represent only about 3% of the total American market, according to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), but it's a sector we all should be supporting more.

That sounds like a great idea, but we'll pay a price for it. Organic fruits and vegetables cost 13¢ to 36¢ per lb. more than ordinary produce, though prices fluctuate depending on the particular food and region of the country. Milk certified as hormone- and antibiotic-free costs $6 per gal. on average, compared with $3.50 for ordinary grocery-store milk.

What's more, while grass-fed beef is lower in fat, and milk without chemicals is clearly a good idea, it's less obvious that organic fruits and vegetables have a nutritional edge to speak of. A 2009 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition led to a firestorm in the food world. It found no difference between organic and conventional produce with regard to all but three of the vitamins and other food components studied, and conventional produce actually squeaked past organic for one of those three. (See the results of a farm vs. supermarket taste test.)

"We draw these bright lines between organic and conventional food," says McWilliams. "But science doesn't draw those lines. They crisscross, and you have people on both sides of the argument cherry-picking their data." For consumers trying to stay healthy and feed their families — and do both on budgets that have become tighter than ever — the ideological back-and-forth does no good at all. What's needed are not arguments but answers.

The Wages of Eating
The biggest reason not to ignore the food purists is that in a lot of ways they're right. Our diet is indeed killing us, and it's killing the planet too. Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta released a study revealing that nearly 27% of Americans are now considered obese (that is, more than 20% above their ideal weight), and in nine states, the obesity rate tops 30%. We eat way too much meat — up to 220 lb. per year for every man, woman and child in the U.S. — and only 14% of us consume our recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Our processed food is dense with salt and swimming in high-fructose corn syrup, two flavors we can't resist. Currently, enough food is manufactured in the U.S. for every American to consume 3,800 calories per day — we need only 2,350 in a healthy diet — and while some of that gets thrown away, most is gobbled up long before it can go stale on the shelves.

See Dr. Mehmet Oz's take on organic food.

Keeping the food flowing — and the prices low enough for people to continue buying it — requires a lot of industrial-engineering tricks, and those have knock-on effects of their own. Up to 10 million tons of chemical fertilizer per year are poured onto fields to cultivate corn alone, for example, which has increased yields 23% from 1990 to 2009 but has led to toxic runoffs that are poisoning the beleaguered Gulf of Mexico. Beef raised in industrial conditions are dosed with antibiotics and growth-boosting hormones, leaving chemical residues in meat and milk. A multicenter study released just two days after the obesity report showed that American girls as young as 7 are entering puberty at double the rate they were in the late 1990s, perhaps as a result of the obesity epidemic but perhaps too as a result of the hormones in their environment — including their food. And for out-of-season foods to be available in all seasons as they now are, crops must be grown in one place and flown or trucked thousands of miles to market. That leaves an awfully big carbon footprint for the privilege of eating a plum in December.

The food wars are fought on multiple fronts, but it's the battle over meat that generates the most ferocious disagreement. Americans have always been unapologetic carnivores, which befits a nation that grew up chasing buffalo and raising cattle across endless stretches of open plains. But lately things have gotten out of hand. The U.S. produces a breathtaking 80 billion lb. of meat per year, with poultry alone making up 35 billion lb. It's now common knowledge that the animals are raised in mostly miserable conditions, jammed together on factory farms and filled with high-calorie, corn-based feed that fattens them up and moves them to slaughter as fast as possible. It can take up to two and a half years to raise a grass-fed cow, while a feedlot animal may face the knife after just 14 months. (See TIME's special report "How to Live 100 Years.")

The idea of animals living such short, brutish lives introduces an element of altruism into the organic-vs.-commercial debate over meat that isn't there for other foods. Just this month, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland brokered a truce between animal-rights activists and farmers in his state to improve the living conditions of hogs, veal calves and hens; that agreement followed similar reforms enacted in California in 2008.

"When you're raising something with a circulatory system and a nervous system, they deserve care," says Bev Eggleston, the owner of EcoFriendly Foods, a decidedly nonindustrial farm in Moneta, Va., that produces cattle, hogs, veal, lamb and poultry. Eggleston's animals live in fields and coops, not feedlots and cages. The farm has a petting zoo, and the doors of the slaughterhouse are open to visitors so they can see the clean and as-humane-as-possible conditions in which the animals are killed. "I want to speak for the animals," Eggleston says. "When I pull a knife, I want them to know their gift is being received."

There are material advantages to that kind of humane treatment. Cattle that eat more grass have higher ratios of omega-3 fatty acids to omega-6s, a balance that's widely believed to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and arthritis and to improve cognitive function. Take the cows out of the pasture, put them in a feedlot and stuff them with corn-based feed, and the omega-3s plummet. (See a special report on women and health.)

"The levels are almost undetectable after three months," says Ken Jaffe, a former physician who now runs Slope Farms, an open-air cattle farm in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The big beef manufacturers concede that while the ratio for omega-6s to omega-3s is 1.5 to 1 for grass-fed cows, it leaps to 7 to 1 for those that are grain-fed. But industry reps challenge the significance of those numbers. "The best ratio hasn't been determined yet in terms of nutritional balance," says Shalene McNeill, a registered dietitian working for the National Beef Cattlemen's Association, an industry group. "And it's important to remember that this is just one small part of a consumer's overall diet."

Farm-raised animals are also higher in conjugated lineoleic acids, fatty acids that, according to studies of lab animals, may help reduce the risk of various cancers. What's more, animals not raised on feedlots have less chance of spreading E. coli bacteria through contact with other animals' manure, though the industry insists it is making improvements, with better spacing of animals on the lots and better cleaning methods in slaughterhouses.

Hogs and chickens present fewer problems than cattle — at least in terms of chemicals — since government regulations prohibit farmers from using growth hormones on either animal. But antibiotics are still served up liberally, and that creates other dangers. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), for example, an often deadly pathogen associated mostly with hospital-acquired infections, has been increasingly turning up in hog farmers, who contract it from their animals. In one study last year, a University of Iowa epidemiologist found that 49% of the hogs she tested were positive for MRSA, as were 45% of the humans who handled them.

Far more troubling — if only because the problem is far more widespread — is the recent recall of more than half a billion eggs from two producers due to salmonella contamination. Salmonella is hardly unheard of even among chickens raised in comfortable, free-range conditions. But when you confine half a dozen birds at a time in cages no larger than an opened broadsheet newspaper, and stack hundreds or thousands of those so-called battery cages together, you're going to spread the bacterium a lot faster. The egg manufacturers stress that thoroughly cooking eggs can kill salmonella — which is true as far as it goes. But treating chickens like conscious creatures instead of egg-manufacturing machinery can help avoid outbreaks in the first place.

Short of swearing off eggs and meat — a perfectly good choice, but with only 3% of Americans describing themselves as vegetarians, not likely for most people — there are no easy solutions. For one thing, if we all decided to switch to healthier, chemical-free meat, there wouldn't be remotely enough to go around. Only 3% of cattle in the U.S. are organically raised, and just 0.02% of hogs and 1.5% of poultry. What's more, that scarcity helps drive the already premium price higher still.

Another alternative is to eat more fish, which is healthier anyway because it's leaner, lower in calories and higher in omega-3s. But with fish stocks collapsing worldwide because of rampant overconsumption, there's only so far that solution could take us. A half measure — but a very powerful one — is simply to cut back on whatever meat we do eat, even if we can't quit it altogether. This shouldn't be too hard: Americans already consume at least 1.5 times as much meat as the USDA recommends in its famed food pyramid. And with plenty of protein to be found in eggs, soy, cheese, grains, nuts, legumes and leafy green vegetables, there is no shortage of ways to compensate. (See "The Battle for Global Health.")

"You need to eat animals only to close the nutrient cycle," says Fred Kirschenmann, a distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. "If we changed a few things about how we live, we'd have fewer animals in the system."

Cash Crops
When animal protein, whether organic or not, becomes a supporting player in the diet, then fruits, veggies and grains take the lead. That's generally a good thing, but here too there are complications. The back-to-the-land ideal of farming without the use of synthetic pesticides and other chemicals can take you only so far in a country with 309 million mouths to feed (not to mention a world with 6.8 billion). Say what you will about the environmental depredations of agribusiness, industrial farms coax up to twice as much food out of every acre of land as organic farms do. And even that full-tilt output may not be enough to keep up with a global population that's galloping ahead to a projected 9 billion by 2050.

"Only about 5% of the arable land on the planet remains unused," says McWilliams. "But we'll need to increase food production by 50% to 100%." If we have to spray, fertilize and even genetically engineer our way there, that's something we may simply have to accept. (See Dr. Mehmet Oz's take on organic food.)

In the U.S., running out of crop foods is not a problem — at least not yet — but pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables cause people some perfectly reasonable worries. Properly washing or peeling produce can take care of most of the problem, but if you buy organic, you avoid the pesticide issue altogether, right? Not necessarily. It's not just that drift from nearby nonorganic farms can contaminate other crops in the vicinity; it's also that organic farmers use pesticides of their own. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are now 195 registered biopesticides — substances derived from animals, plants or minerals that are toxic to certain species — used in 780 commercial products. There is broad agreement that biopesticides are not as dangerous as commercial pesticides, but less toxic doesn't mean nontoxic, and even such lower-impact chemistry has a nasty habit of hanging around in soil and water longer than you want it to. "Organic farming may represent only 2% of the total of all farming," says McWilliams, "but what if it became 20%? The chemicals are used only sparingly now, but they wouldn't be then."

Organic fertilizers are less of a problem, since they consist mostly of manure, as well as other relatively benign materials like peat, seaweed, saltpeter and compost. Humble as such substances are, however, they can become awfully pricey, because you need very big quantities to pack the same fertilizing punch as synthetic brands do. "It can take four tons of manure per acre to raise food," says McWilliams. "When you know that, a bag of synthetic fertilizer starts to look pretty good."

Wallet and Palate
But for most consumers — even those who think of themselves as environmentally conscious — the critical considerations in deciding to go organic involve the far more personal matters of price, flavor and nutrition. Last year's nutrient study had a lot of organic partisans wincing — and a lot of commercial growers feeling smug — but one paper is hardly the whole story. The real difference between organic and nonorganic produce is in the relative presence of micronutrients such as copper, iron and manganese, as well as folic acid, none of which were included in the study. With these, the results are mixed. (See whether you should buy organic or conventional food.)

In a meta-analysis conducted by the Organic Center, a nonprofit group in Boulder, Colo., organic produce was found to be 25% higher in phenolic acids and antioxidants. "It's these components that are deficient in American diets, so that makes this finding especially significant," says Charles Benbrook, the group's chief scientist. But the organic label alone is not enough to ensure that all consumers get the same boost. "The real nutrient value in produce comes from the soil," says Kirschenmann. "So that's a mixed deal unless you know the farmer and know how he's managing his soil."

The farmer also plays the biggest role in determining the most subjective of all variables: taste. You can start a lot of arguments about whether organic crops actually have better, fresher, more complex flavors than industrial crops do, but without a double-blind taste test, there's no way to know. On a few points, most people agree: a freakishly large, overly engineered tomato or strawberry designed to ripen en route to a distribution center will never come close to the taste of its vine-ripened, fresh-picked cousin. The Red Delicious apple is the poster fruit for what can go wrong when commercial growers manipulate their product too much. Bred and rebred for an ever redder skin and an ever more tapered shape, the apples became mealy, juiceless and all but unpalatable inside. (See the results of a farm vs. supermarket taste test.)

That, however, is not to say organic growers don't also try to prettify their produce before revealing it to the world. "Green markets can be a kind of food pornography," says Manny Howard, author of My Empire of Dirt, about his experiences with backyard farming. "You buy a big bushel of beet greens without a wormhole in it, and that's just not what farm food looks like."

There may be flavor to be found in lovely and unlovely food alike, and a lot of things have to go right to raise the best-tasting produce. It's not just the quality of the soil that's at work, says Kirschenmann. "Selecting the right variety of plant and using the right mix of compost are important too. With farm-to-table food, the farmers are in many ways the chefs, as opposed to, say, molecular gastronomy, in which so much happens in the kitchen."

The kitchen, of course, is the center of everything for families too, and this is where the shouting of the food partisans fades to babble. Eating an apple is almost always better than not eating an apple, no matter where it came from. And getting the whole brood into the habit of sitting down to a meal of lean meats, lots of veggies and judicious amounts of carbs and starches is hard enough without bringing politics into the mix. Farmers' markets are undeniably great — if you can afford them, if there's one near you and if you have time between the job and the kids to make a special trip when you know you can get everything in a single stop at the supermarket. The food industry undeniably churns out all manner of dangerous and addictive junk without a shred of real nutritional value in it, but there are also food companies that manage to get healthy, high-quality food to market and keep the cost of it reasonable.

The answer, ultimately, is for the two sets of producers — and their two sets of customers — to find a better way to co-exist. It's important to crack down on the industry's most egregious and polluting practices — to say nothing of its punishing treatment of animals — but we need to make sure the food still gets to the stores. It's important too to support the local-farming movement not only to make more fresh foods available to more consumers but also to boost a growing economic sector and perhaps bring down prices as efficiencies of scale come up.

"If we all had to concentrate on raising our own food, we wouldn't have time to do anything else," says Howard. Happily, we don't have to do that anymore. But that doesn't let us entirely off the hook. We still have to get smart about what the people who bring us our food are selling, to find the right mix of the commercial and the local, the organic and the industrial. There's a lot more than just groceries on the line — there's health and long life too.

The original version of this article, which appeared in the Aug. 30, 2010, issue of TIME, has been updated to reflect the egg recall.

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Obama Will Triumph...So Will America (by Frank Schaeffer)

Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best selling author. Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America By Frank Schaeffer Before he'd  served even one year President  Obama lost the support  of the easily distracted left and engendered the  white hot rage of  the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of  life and  ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight,  57-year- old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer   and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader)  this  unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President. Why?--  because he is succeeding. We faithful Obama supporters still trust  our initial impression of  him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man  to lead us. Obama's steady supporters will be proved right.  Obama's critics  will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely  discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst. The Context of the Obama  Presidency Not since the days of the rise of fascism in  Europe , the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced  more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration  has any president faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully  ignorant opposition - from both  the right and left. As the President's poll numbers have fallen so  h as his support from some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah  not long ago;  all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling  all  over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the  2008  election. The left's lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling  "prophecy"--  snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall  and  then pretend you didn't have  anything to do with it! Here is  what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was  his  fault: # An ideologically divided country to the point that  America was  really two countries # Two wars; one that was  mishandled from the start, the other that  was unnecessary and  immoral # The worst economic crisis since the depression #  America 's standing in the world at the lowest point in history # A  country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture  of  prisoners of war # A health care system in free fall # An  educational system in free fall # A global environmental crisis of  history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the  Republicans had done nothing) # An impasse between culture warriors  from the right and left # A huge financial deficit inherited from  the terminally irresponsible Bush administration. And those were  only some of the problems sitting  on the President's desk! "Help"  from the Right? What did the Republicans and the religious  right, libertarians and  half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what  the Republicans  were reduced to by th e time Obama took office -- do to  "help" our  new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he wasn't a real American, didn't have an American birth certificate,  wasn't  born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist",  was secretly  a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was  a reincarnation of  Hitler and wanted "death panels" to kill the elderly! They  not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so- subtle use  of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper  sticker quoting  Psalm 109:8. They organized "tea parties" to sound  off against imagined  insults and all government in general and  gathered to howl at the moon.  They were led by insurance industry  lobbyists and deranged (but well  financed) "commentators" from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh. The  utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the  utterly  discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who was trying to  actually do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish the  number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to  care for the sick! And in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one  word: "No!" (Sounding, always like the defiant two-year olds!) In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far right, combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big business,  libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies,  child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", frontier loons and evangelical  gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from  succeeding at all costs! "Help" from the Left? What did the  left do to help their newly elected president? Some of  them excoriated the  President because they disagreed with the bad choices he was being forced  to make regarding a war in Afghanistan  that he'd inherited from the worst president in  modern history! Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that  the President's economic policies had "failed" before the President even instituted  them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won  within virtually minutes of the President taking office,  they'd been  "betrayed"! (Never mind that Obama's vocal support to the gay community is stronger than any other president's has been.  Never mind that he signed a  new hate crimes law!) Those that had stood in transfixed legions  weeping with beatific  emotion on election night turned into an angry mob  saying how  "disappointed" they were that they'd not all immediately been  translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House!  Where  was the "change"? Contrary to their expectations they were  still mere  mortals! And the legion of young new supporters was too busy  texting to pay  attention for longer than a nanosecond. "Governing"?! What  the hell  does that word, uh, like mean?" The President's critics  left and right all had one thing in common:  impatience laced with  little-to-no sense of history (let alone reality) thrown in for good  measure. Then of course there were the  white, snide know-it-all  commentators/talking heads who just couldn't imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren't as smart as they  thought they were and certainly not as smart as their  president. He hadn't consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong! The Obama critics'  ideological ideas defined their idea of reality rather than reality  defining their ideas-say, about what is  possible in one year in office after the hand that the  President  had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot  nation that voted Bush into offic twice! Meanwhile back in the reality-based community -  in just 12 short  months -- President Obama: #Continued to  draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq (But that wasn't good enough for  his critics) #Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of  several bad choices  regarding the war in Afghanistan (But that wasn't  good enough for his critics) #Gave a major precedent-setting speech  supporting gay rights (But that wasn't good enough for his  critics) #Restored America 's image around the globe (But that  wasn't good enough for his critics) #Banned torture of American  prisoners (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Stopped the free fall of the American economy (But that wasn't  good enough for his critics) #Put the USA squarely back in the  bilateral international community (But that wasn't good enough for his  critics) #Put the USA squarely into the middle of the  international effort  to halt global warming (But that wasn't good  enough for his critics) #Stood up for educational reform (But  that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Won a Nobel peace  prize (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Moved the  trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and  balances (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Did  what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost  impossible  process of health care reform that 7 presidents had  failed to even  begin (because the wealthy abhor taking care of anyone than themselves....it's always all about them!) (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Responded  to hatred from the right and left with measured good  humor and  patience (But that wasn't good enough for his critics) #Stopped  the free fall of job losses (But that wasn't good enough for his  critics) #Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed  and  dangerous far right opposition that included th e sort of disgusting   people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and  carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the "blood of  tyrants"  needing to "water the tree of liberty". (But that wasn't good enough  for his critics) #Showed that he could not only make the tough  military choices but  explain and defend them brilliantly (But that  wasn't good enough for his critics) Other than those  "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR --  President Obama  "failed"! Other than that he didn't "live up to  expectations"! Who actually has  failed... ...are the Americans that can't see the beginning  of a miracle of  national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed  are the  smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for this President to fail so that they could  be proved right in their  dire and morbid predictions. Who failed  are the movers and shakers  behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have  turned "news" into  just more stupid entertainment for an  entertainment-besotted  infantile country. Here's the good news:  President Obama is succeeding without the  help of his lefty "supporters"  or hate-filled Republican  detractors! The Future Looks  Good! After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will),  after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety  on  all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible   succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries  are  burgeoning, (they will be), after the doom sayers are all proved  not just  wrong but silly: let the record show that not all  Americans were panicked  into thinking the sky was falling. Just because we didn't get  everything we wanted in the first short  and fraught year Obama was in  office not all of us gave up. Some of  us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.

"Radical Forgiveness" and Colin Tipping

If you have never heard of "Radical Forgiveness", it is wonderful to visit the site of Colin Tipping.  He provides a number of free tools to work with the process.  The process is "Forgiveness" as you may have never known it, and Tipping's tools bring us to a deeper level of understanding ourselves and others.

Tipping provides these caveats:

All the tools provided in the Radical Forgiveness technology take us through the following five stages.  It is essential that none are skipped, especially number two.  A lot of people try to avoid the feeling stage and go straight to spiritual interpretation.   That is what we would call doing a ‘spiritual bypass,’ and is counter productive.  We begin with our victim story, recognize and accept our judgments, feel the feelings and only then proceed to the spiritual perspective. 

1. TELL THE STORY 

Having your story heard, witnessed and validated, is the first step 

to letting it go. Likewise, the first step in releasing victimhood is to 

own it fully. So, in this step, someone willingly and compassionately 

listens to you tell your story, and it is honored as your truth in the 

moment.  [With a worksheet there is no active listener - except your- 

self]. 

2. FEEL THE FEELINGS 

Your feelings represent your authentic power.  Your strength lies in 

your vulnerability and your willingness to show up as fully human.  You 

cannot heal what you don’t feel.  When people access their pain, this 

is the beginning of their healing. 

3. COLLAPSE THE STORY 

This is where we make a conscious choice to withdraw the energy 

we have given to the story and begin to realize that the story is mostly 

our interpretation of events based on our limited perception of reality, 

and that since there is more to it than meets the eye it is largely an 

illusion. 

4. REFRAME THE STORY 

Here we specifically replace the ‘illusionary’ story with another story - 

the Radical Forgiveness ‘story.’   This one expresses our willingness 

to see that what appeared to have happened, far from being a trag- 

edy, was in fact exactly what we wanted to experience for our soul 

growth and was in that sense, absolutely perfect 

5. INTEGRATE 

It is necessary to integrate that change at the cellular level.  That 

means integrating it into the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual 

bodies so it becomes a part of who you are.  Breathwork, walking, 

physical work, doing worksheets etc.

TWO checklists: Antisocial Personality, Sociopathy, and Psychopathy

    Hare's PCL-R 20-item checklist is based on Cleckley's 16-item checklist, and the following is a discussion of the concepts in the PCL-R.

But first of all, here is Cleckley's original list of symptoms of a psychopath:

1. Considerable superficial charm and average or above average intelligence.

2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking

3. Absence of anxiety or other "neurotic" symptoms considerable poise, calmness, and verbal facility.

4. Unreliability, disregard for obligations no sense of responsibility, in matters of little and great import.

5.Untruthfulness and insincerity

7. Antisocial behavior which is inadequately motivated and poorly planned, seeming to stem from an inexplicable impulsiveness.

7.Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior

8.Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience

9. Pathological egocentricity. Total self-centeredness incapacity for real love and attachment.

10. General poverty ot deep and lasting emotions.

11. Lack of any true insight, inability to see oneself as others do.

12. Ingratitude for any special considerations, kindness, and trust.

13. Fantastic and objectionable behavior, after drinking and sometimes even when not drinking--vulgarity, rudeness, quick mood shifts, pranks.

14. No history of genuine suicide attempts.

15. An impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated seX life.

16. Failure to have a life plan and to live in any ordered way, unless it be one promoting self-defeat.

"...More often than not, the typical psychopath will seem particularly agreeable and make a distinctly positive impression when he is first encountered. Alert and friendly in his attitude, he is easy to talk with and seems to have a good many genuine interests. There is nothing at all odd or queer about him, and in every respect he tends to embody the concept of a well-adjusted, happy person. Nor does he, on the other hand, seem to be artificially exerting himself like one who is covering up or who wants to sell you a bill of goods. He would seldom be confused with the professional backslapper or someone who is trying to ingratiate himself for a concealed purpose. Signs of affectation or excessive affability are not characteristic. He looks like the real thing.

"Very often indications of good sense and sound reasoning will emerge, and one is likely to feel soon after meeting him that this normal and pleasant person is also one with -high abilities. Psychometric tests also very frequently show him of superior intelligence. More than the average person, he is likely to seem free from social or emotional impediments, from the minor distortions, peculiarities, and awkwardnesses so common even among the successful. Such superficial characteristics are not universal in this group but they are very common..."

"...It must be granted of course that the psychopath has some affect. Affect is, perhaps, a component in the sum of life reactions even in the unicellular protoplasmic entity. Certainly in all mammals it is obvious. The relatively petty states of pleasure, vexation, and animosity experienced by the psychopath have been mentioned. The opinion here maintained is that he fails to know all those more serious and deeply moving affective states which make up the tragedy and triumph of ordinary life, of life at the level of important human experience..."

Hare's Checklist

1. GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM -- the tendency to be smooth, engaging, charming, slick, and verbally facile. Psychopathic charm is not in the least shy, self-conscious, or afraid to say anything. A psychopath never gets tongue-tied. They have freed themselves from the social conventions about taking turns in talking, for example. >

2. GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH -- a grossly inflated view of one's abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart. Psychopaths are arrogant people who believe they are superior human beings.

3. NEED FOR STIMULATION or PRONENESS TO BOREDOM -- an excessive need for novel, thrilling, and exciting stimulation; taking chances and doing things that are risky. Psychopaths often have a low self-discipline in carrying tasks through to completion because they get bored easily. They fail to work at the same job for any length of time, for example, or to finish tasks that they consider dull or routine. 

4. PATHOLOGICAL LYING -- can be moderate or high; in moderate form, they will be shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, and clever; in extreme form, they will be deceptive, deceitful, underhanded, unscrupulous, manipulative, and dishonest.

5. CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS- the use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain; distinguished from Item #4 in the degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as reflected in a lack of concern for the feelings and suffering of one's victims.

6. LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT -- a lack of feelings or concern for the losses, pain, and suffering of victims; a tendency to be unconcerned, dispassionate, coldhearted, and unempathic. This item is usually demonstrated by a disdain for one's victims.

7. SHALLOW AFFECT -- emotional poverty or a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open gregariousness. 

8. CALLOUSNESS and LACK OF EMPATHY -- a lack of feelings toward people in general; cold, contemptuous, inconsiderate, and tactless.

9. PARASITIC LIFESTYLE -- an intentional, manipulative, selfish, and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation, low self-discipline, and inability to begin or complete responsibilities.

10. POOR BEHAVIORAL CONTROLS -- expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper; acting hastily.

11. PROMISCUOUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR -- a variety of brief, superficial relations, numerous affairs, and an indiscriminate selection of sexual partners; the maintenance of several relationships at the same time; a history of attempts to sexually coerce others into sexual activity or taking great pride at discussing sexual exploits or conquests.

12. EARLY BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS -- a variety of behaviors prior to age 13, including lying, theft, cheating, vandalism, bullying, sexual activity, fire-setting, glue-sniffing, alcohol use, and running away from home.

13. LACK OF REALISTIC, LONG-TERM GOALS -- an inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals; a nomadic existence, aimless, lacking direction in life.

14. IMPULSIVITY -- the occurrence of behaviors that are unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning; inability to resist temptation, frustrations, and urges; a lack of deliberation without considering the consequences; foolhardy, rash, unpredictable, erratic, and reckless.

15. IRRESPONSIBILITY -- repeated failure to fulfill or honor obligations and commitments; such as not paying bills, defaulting on loans, performing sloppy work, being absent or late to work, failing to honor contractual agreements.

16. FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS -- a failure to accept responsibility for one's actions reflected in low conscientiousness, an absence of dutifulness, antagonistic manipulation, denial of responsibility, and an effort to manipulate others through this denial.

17. MANY SHORT-TERM MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS -- a lack of commitment to a long-term relationship reflected in inconsistent, undependable, and unreliable commitments in life, including marital.

18. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY -- behavior problems between the ages of 13-18; mostly behaviors that are crimes or clearly involve aspects of antagonism, exploitation, aggression, manipulation, or a callous, ruthless tough-mindedness.

19. REVOCATION OF CONDITION RELEASE -- a revocation of probation or other conditional release due to technical violations, such as carelessness, low deliberation, or failing to appear.

20. CRIMINAL VERSATILITY -- a diversity of types of criminal offenses, regardless if the person has been arrested or convicted for them; taking great pride at getting away with crimes.